Britain has been in lockdown for six days as Covid-19 continues to overwhelm the NHS. A junior doctor in one of London’s worst-hit hospitals tells how the wards are swamped with patients – and underequipped medics are being forced to make life-or-death decisions.
MONDAY NIGHT It’s the first of a four-night stretch. It’s the busiest night yet. The hospital is like a war zone, but I fear we will look back in two weeks and see this as the calm before the storm.
I work in acute care. It’s my job to keep patients alive before they go to the intensive care unit. Half the staff are absent, self-isolating because they or relatives have symptoms of the virus.